Event Date : January 21, 2025
Event Time : 11:00 am - 12:15 pm
Event Location : Online
Renowned food systems thinker and scholar, Prof Tim Lang, has spent the last two years researching the UK food system’s preparedness for shocks. In this AFN Network+ webinar he will draw on his soon-to-be-published report for the National Preparedness Commission which addresses the state of civil (ie the public’s) food resilience.
About this topic, Tim writes;
“How can the notion of resilience (the capacity to bounce back from shock) be applied to the UK food system? The word is used endlessly but thinly. UK governments have assured us the UK’s food security is robust. The National Risk Register 2023 gives only one food risk of 89 facing the country. Many food analysts disagree, pointing to a polycrisis of climate change, geopolitics, prices, food ‘weaponisation’ (Ukraine, Sudan, Gaza) and the fragilities of Just-in-Time logistics on which almost all food supply depends.
“The UK has form in complacency about food, a policy legacy of Empire and EU membership. So far policy advice on resilience-proofing focuses on individual corporate actions. The public has barely featured despite the public being said to be in charge of supply!
“This lecture will sketch the current national resilience framework, pointing to a gap between official resilience planning and food system realities. I draw on a not-yet-published report for the National Preparedness Commission which addresses the state of civil (ie the public’s) food resilience. This highlights the need for community over individualism. Delivering civil food resilience requires a radical but reasonable shift in public policy and more public engagement. Benign ignorance is rarely a good policy.”
About Tim:
Tim Lang is Emeritus Professor of Food Policy at City University of London’s Centre for Food Policy, which he founded in 1994 and directed until 2016. For four decades he has researched, written, advised and lectured on the food system at international, national and local levels, particularly in relation to health, environment, social justice, the political economy and consumer culture. He previously spent seven years as a hill farmer, an experience which shaped his work ever since.
He has written and co-written many articles, reports, chapters and books. His most recent books include: Feeding Britain (Pelican, 2020), Food Wars (with Michael Heasman, Routledge, 2015), Unmanageable Consumer (with Yiannis Gabriel, Sage, 2015), Ecological Public Health (with Geof Rayner, Routedge Earthscan, 2012), Food Policy (with D Barling and M Caraher, Oxford University Press, 2009) and the Atlas of Food (with E Millstone, Earthscan 2003/2008), which won the André Simon award 2003. He writes frequently in the media and wrote a monthly column in The Grocer 2000-15.
About the webinar series:
This webinar is part of a monthly series run by AFN Network+ which explores net zero in the UK agri-food system with leading movers and shakers. Expect deep and varied insight from across the sector, including farmers, scientists, policy analysts, community leaders, retailers, politicians, businesses and health professionals. The series is organised by Jez Fredenburgh our Knowledge Exchange Fellow, and Prof Neil Ward, AFN Co-lead and Professor of rural geography. Jez and Neil are based in the School of Environmental Sciences, and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, at the University of East Anglia.
